Indexed Campagnolo Levers with a friction shift rear dérailleur.

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Hi mto you all out there. As some of you will doubtless know I have recently rescued and restored a rather sadly neglected Benotto,well all is well with the transformation and it successfully and happily runs on a 7spd screw-on BUT I have just changed over to a new pair of custom built wheels with a pair of Shimano Exage hubs &spd.
The 7spd hub is now running an 8spd individual sprocket cassette.

My question is - will Campagnolo 8spd levers successfully control an 8spd Shimano sprocket selection via the Campagnolo Nuovo Gran Sport rear dérailleur?
 

TheDoctor

Europe Endless
Moderator
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The TerrorVortex
Well, the Campag levers are telling the Campag rear mech to do the right thing, so the issue is whether the rear sprocket spacing is correct.
According to Chris Juden's article, 7 speed Shimano has the same spacing as 8 speed Campag, so that would have worked perfectly, as you found. 8 speed Shimano is slightly different spacing, but can probably be set up so it works.
I'm confused, though, about what you actually have. Is it 8-from-9 spacing? That's where you take a 9 speed cassette, remove a sprocket and spacer, then fit to a 7 speed hub?
If so, I think the spacing there will be too far off to index. Your options in that case are :-
Go back to 7 speed (which is what I'd do)
Use the levers in friction mode, when they'll work anything.
 

Spoked Wheels

Legendary Member
Location
Bournemouth
Hi mto you all out there. As some of you will doubtless know I have recently rescued and restored a rather sadly neglected Benotto,well all is well with the transformation and it successfully and happily runs on a 7spd screw-on BUT I have just changed over to a new pair of custom built wheels with a pair of Shimano Exage hubs &spd.
The 7spd hub is now running an 8spd individual sprocket cassette.

My question is - will Campagnolo 8spd levers successfully control an 8spd Shimano sprocket selection via the Campagnolo Nuovo Gran Sport rear dérailleur?

No but a 10 speed campagnolio shifter will work nicely with an 8 speed shimano cassette.
 

TheDoctor

Europe Endless
Moderator
Location
The TerrorVortex
No but a 10 speed campagnolio shifter will work nicely with an 8 speed shimano cassette.
If you're using a Shimano rear mech, yes. If you want to keep the original Campag stuff on that bike, then I'd stick with the 7 speed personally. Campag 8 speed cassettes are like hens teeth anyhow.
 
Well, the Campag levers are telling the Campag rear mech to do the right thing, so the issue is whether the rear sprocket spacing is correct.
According to Chris Juden's article, 7 speed Shimano has the same spacing as 8 speed Campag, so that would have worked perfectly, as you found. 8 speed Shimano is slightly different spacing, but can probably be set up so it works.
I'm confused, though, about what you actually have. Is it 8-from-9 spacing? That's where you take a 9 speed cassette, remove a sprocket and spacer, then fit to a 7 speed hub?
If so, I think the spacing there will be too far off to index. Your options in that case are :-
Go back to 7 speed (which is what I'd do)
Use the levers in friction mode, when they'll work anything.


Hi TD & SW. Thank you for your respective replies.
The cassette is a bespoke (8 individual sprockets) one on a 7spd Hyperglide hub (Shimano Exage). Seemingly it will take 8 individual sprockets with the correct spacing between each sprocket.
The advantage of this - for me - is that I can get a better range and one extra to a standard 7spd screw-on.
I now have my recently rescued and rebuilt Benotto on a triple + 8 and using the Campy friction levers with the Nuovo Gran Sport rear dérailleur.
The reason that I asked was that I have considered using the 8spd Campagnolo indexed levers to operate the Nuovo Gran Sport rear dérailleur.

An 8spd Campagnolo cassette is not what I am after being that I have just had a pair of Shimano Exage hubs built into a pair of rims.
My 7spd screw-on is a MIche hub and also built into new rims ( Weinmann XR18's) I have just had the axle trimmed on the non-drive side to a 125mm spacing and the wheel re-dished.
 

TheDoctor

Europe Endless
Moderator
Location
The TerrorVortex
Well, I'm not sure that a non indexed rear mech will index properly. It might, but I wouldn't count on it and I wouldn't buy the levers on the off chance.
 
In short, the answer is "no" ... the rear derailleur movement per unit of cable recovery into the lever is wrong and although this can be modified by a variety of tricks, some of them involve modifying a RD for which you won't find spares - so unless you are very confident of what you are doing, I'd avoid it.

Secondly, the single pivot parallelogram design of the older Campagnolo RDs is not very good at keeping a constant or near-constant length of "free" chain between the point where the sprocket "releases" the chain and the top jockey takes it up - such consistency is a big help to making an index system work properly and was a significanr part of the reason that early Campagnolo "retro-fittable" index systems (like Synchro 1) were unsuccesful - it wasn't until Campganolo moved to cranked upper knucklr designs, custom engineered to work in tandem with specific sprockets, levers and chains, that they made a truly succesful index system.

Probably best to ride this system on frictaion and emjoy it for what it is - less risk to the parts from potential damage, less risk to you from poor function.

HTH
Graeme
Velotech Cycling Ltd
Main UK Campagnolo Technical, Service and Warranty Centre.
 
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